Acupuncture for Back Pain in Naperville IL

Your back pain has become the thing that runs your life. It decides whether you can pick up your kids, whether you can sit through a meeting, whether you can sleep through the night. You’ve tried the muscle relaxers that make you feel like you’re underwater. You’ve done the stretches. Maybe you’ve had injections that helped for a few weeks and then wore off. And here you are, still hurting, still looking for something that actually works.

Acupuncture may be the treatment you haven’t tried yet—and the research shows it may be the one that finally makes a difference for your back pain.

I’m Dr. Jennifer Wise, a Palmer College of Chiropractic graduate,  acupuncturist, and founder of Synergy Institute in Naperville. I’ve treated back pain for over 25 years, and I can tell you this: the reason most back pain treatments fail isn’t because they don’t work. It’s because they only address one piece of a multi-layered problem. Acupuncture—especially when combined with the right complementary treatments—addresses the layers that other approaches miss.

In this article, I’ll explain how acupuncture works for back pain in a way that actually makes sense, why your back pain keeps coming back despite treatment, and how our integrative approach at Synergy produces results that single-treatment clinics can’t match.

---

Back Pain Quick Facts

---

The Christmas Lights Analogy: How Your Back Pain Actually Works

I explain acupuncture to my patients like this: think of your body’s pain and nerve pathways like a strand of Christmas lights. When every bulb in the strand is working, electricity flows through the entire circuit and everything lights up the way it should. Your muscles fire correctly. Your nerves send clean signals. You move without pain.

But when one bulb goes bad—one disc herniates, one joint locks up, one muscle goes into spasm, one nerve gets compressed—the whole circuit goes dark. That one bad bulb disrupts the electrical flow through the entire strand. Now you don’t just have pain at the site of the problem. You have muscle guarding three levels above it. You have compensatory movement patterns that stress your hips and knees. You have nerve signals misfiring in your legs. One problem creates a cascade.

This isn’t just a metaphor. Your body’s meridian system—the pathways that acupuncture has mapped for thousands of years—runs through your musculoskeletal system like an electrical circuit. Modern research has confirmed that these meridian pathways correspond closely to known nerve pathways, fascial planes, and connective tissue networks. When there’s a disruption anywhere along the circuit, it affects everything downstream.

Here’s what makes acupuncture different from most back pain treatments: it finds and fixes the bad bulb. While pain medication masks the signal (like putting tape over the dark bulb so you don’t notice it) and muscle relaxers shut down the whole strand (everything goes dark so nothing hurts), acupuncture goes to the specific point in the circuit where the disruption is occurring and restores normal flow.

And sometimes? There’s more than one bad bulb. A herniated disc AND trigger points AND inflammation AND a locked SI joint—all disrupting the circuit at different points. That’s when you need someone who can identify every disruption and address them all. That’s what I do.

---

Why Your Back Pain Keeps Coming Back

If your back pain has been treated before and it came back, the treatment probably addressed only one bulb when there were three or four that needed fixing. Here’s what might actually be going on:

Muscular Back Pain

The most common type. Your paraspinal muscles, quadratus lumborum, and deep stabilizers develop trigger points—tight, contracted knots that cause local pain and refer pain to other areas. You feel stiffness, aching, and that deep soreness that never quite goes away. Prolonged sitting makes it worse. Stress makes it worse. Poor sleep makes it worse.

Acupuncture is exceptionally effective for muscular back pain. I place needles directly into trigger points that manual massage often can’t fully release, and the resulting endorphin response provides lasting relief—not just a temporary loosening.

Disc-Related Back Pain

Your lumbar spine has discs between each vertebra that act as shock absorbers. When those discs herniate or bulge, they can press on nerve roots and cause deep, aching pain that often radiates into your buttock or leg. Disc pain is typically worse with sitting, bending, or first thing in the morning.

Acupuncture reduces the inflammation around the damaged disc and calms the irritated nerve—but disc problems also need mechanical intervention. That’s where spinal decompression comes in. Decompression addresses the disc itself while acupuncture addresses the pain and inflammation around it. Two different bulbs, two different fixes, one coordinated plan.

Nerve Compression (Lumbar Radiculopathy)

When a disc, bone spur, or narrowed spinal canal compresses a nerve root in your lower back, the result is radiculopathy—pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness that travels down your leg. This is sciatica in its various forms, and it’s more than just a sore back. It’s a structural problem that needs precise diagnosis.

As a Doctor of Chiropractic, I can evaluate your lumbar spine, review your MRI, and determine exactly which nerve root is involved. As a licensed acupuncturist, I can then target treatment to reduce inflammation around that specific nerve. I wrote a detailed article on this: Acupuncture for Sciatica Relief in Naperville IL. If your back pain includes leg symptoms, that article is worth reading.

Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Dysfunction

The SI joint—where your spine connects to your pelvis—is one of the most commonly missed causes of lower back pain. SI joint dysfunction can mimic disc problems and even sciatica, which is why so many patients get treated for the wrong thing. The pain is typically one-sided, centered in the low back or buttock, and worse with transitional movements like getting out of a car or rolling over in bed.

Acupuncture combined with chiropractic adjustment is one of the most effective treatment combinations for SI joint pain. The adjustment restores proper joint mechanics while acupuncture releases the surrounding muscle spasm and reduces inflammation in the joint itself.

Degenerative Changes

As we age, discs lose hydration, facet joints develop arthritis, and the spinal canal can narrow. These degenerative changes—degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, facet syndrome—create chronic, ongoing sources of pain. You can’t reverse the degeneration, but you absolutely can manage the pain, reduce the inflammation, and maintain function.

Acupuncture is particularly valuable for degenerative back conditions because it addresses the chronic inflammatory cycle without the risks of long-term medication use. Many of my patients with degenerative changes use periodic acupuncture as their primary pain management strategy.

🚨 Seek Immediate Medical Care If You Experience:

• Back pain with loss of bowel or bladder control
• Progressive weakness in one or both legs
• Numbness in the groin or inner thigh area (saddle anesthesia)
• Back pain after significant trauma
• Back pain with unexplained weight loss or fever

These symptoms may indicate cauda equina syndrome or other serious conditions requiring emergency evaluation.

---

How Acupuncture Resets the Circuit

Going back to our Christmas lights analogy—here’s what’s happening at each point in the circuit when I treat your back pain:

Finding the bad bulbs (diagnosis). Before I place a single needle, I evaluate your spine, test your range of motion, palpate your muscles, assess your neurological function, and review any imaging. I need to know exactly which bulbs are out before I can fix them. This diagnostic step is where my dual credential as both a Doctor of Chiropractic and a licensed acupuncturist becomes critical—I’m evaluating your back pain from two clinical perspectives simultaneously.

Restoring local flow (trigger point release). I place needles directly into or near trigger points in the lumbar musculature—the erector spinae, quadratus lumborum, multifidus, piriformis, and gluteal muscles. The needle creates a local twitch response that breaks the contraction cycle, increases blood flow to the knotted tissue, and restores normal muscle function. The bad bulb lights back up.

Clearing the inflammation (anti-inflammatory response). Research shows acupuncture downregulates pro-inflammatory cytokines while activating anti-inflammatory pathways. For disc-related and nerve-related back pain, this is essential—it reduces swelling around compressed structures and calms irritated nerve tissue. The corrosion on the bulb socket gets cleaned out.

Resetting the pain signal (neuromodulation). Needle stimulation triggers the release of endorphins, serotonin, and norepinephrine—your body’s natural pain-relieving chemicals. More importantly, it helps reset a sensitized nervous system that’s been amplifying pain signals. The electrical current in the strand normalizes.

Improving repair capacity (circulation). Acupuncture increases local blood flow, bringing oxygen and nutrients needed for tissue healing while flushing out inflammatory waste products. This is particularly important for discs and ligaments that have limited blood supply on their own. The whole strand gets more power.

The result isn’t temporary symptom masking. With consistent treatment, acupuncture addresses the actual disruptions in your pain circuit—and the effects are cumulative and lasting.

---

Electroacupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain

For chronic back pain that hasn’t responded well to other treatments, I frequently use electroacupuncture—a technique where a gentle electrical current is delivered between paired acupuncture needles. Think of it as giving the circuit a direct boost of clean power.

A landmark 2025 NIH-funded study called BackInAction—the largest study of its kind in older adults—found that participants who received acupuncture had significantly greater improvement in physical function and pain reduction compared to those receiving usual medical care alone. The acupuncture groups also experienced reduced anxiety symptoms, and the benefits persisted at both six-month and twelve-month follow-up assessments.

Electroacupuncture reaches deeper nerve fibers than manual needling alone, triggers a more sustained release of pain-relieving neurotransmitters, and is particularly effective for nerve-related back pain including radiculopathy and stenosis symptoms. Most patients describe the sensation as a mild rhythmic pulsing—not painful, and many find it deeply relaxing.

---

Synergy’s Integrative Approach to Back Pain

Here’s what separates Synergy Institute from every other clinic in Naperville: when your back pain circuit has multiple bad bulbs, we can fix all of them. Under one roof. In one coordinated treatment plan.

Acupuncture + Electroacupuncture

The foundation. Finds and addresses every disruption in the circuit—trigger points, inflammation, nerve irritation, pain sensitization. Effective for all types of back pain.

Chiropractic Adjustment

Corrects spinal misalignments and restores proper joint mechanics. When vertebrae are out of alignment, they create mechanical stress on discs, joints, and nerves—another bad bulb in the circuit. Chiropractic care and acupuncture together address both the structural and soft tissue components of back pain simultaneously.

Spinal Decompression

For patients with herniated discs, bulging discs, degenerative disc disease, or stenosis, our decompression system gently creates negative pressure in the lumbar discs, promoting retraction and healing. We were one of the first clinics in Illinois to offer spinal decompression, starting in 2002. I wrote a comprehensive guide to this treatment: Spinal Decompression for Back Pain Relief in Naperville IL. Decompression fixes the disc—acupuncture fixes the pain and inflammation around it. Different bulbs, same strand.

MLS Laser Therapy

I use MLS laser directly on lumbar trigger points and inflamed tissue. The dual-wavelength laser penetrates deep into the muscle, reducing inflammation and accelerating cellular repair. For patients with chronic back tension that keeps cycling, laser combined with acupuncture can break the pattern.

SoftWave Therapy

SoftWave uses acoustic wave technology to break up scar tissue, reduce inflammation, and activate your body’s own stem cells for tissue regeneration. For chronic back pain with significant soft tissue involvement—especially after failed treatments or post-surgical pain—SoftWave adds a regenerative dimension that other therapies don’t provide.

Stimpod Neuromodulation

For nerve-related back pain—radiculopathy, sciatica, post-surgical nerve irritation—Stimpod delivers pulsed radiofrequency energy along the affected nerve to calm overactive pain signaling. It reaches nerve dysfunction at a level that acupuncture and laser can’t fully address alone.

Nutritional Support

Chronic inflammation is the enemy of healing. Deficiencies in magnesium, vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids are common in chronic back pain patients and directly affect muscle tension, inflammatory responses, and disc health. Our nutritional assessment identifies gaps that may be slowing your recovery.

Treatment Comparison

No other acupuncture clinic in Naperville offers this combination. And it matters because back pain with more than one cause needs more than one solution—you need someone who can find every bad bulb and fix them all.

---

Is Acupuncture for Back Pain Right for You?

You May Be a Good Candidate If:

• You have back pain that lasts more than a few weeks
• Your back pain keeps returning despite stretching, medication, or physical therapy
• You have pain that radiates into your buttock, hip, or leg
• You’ve been told you have a herniated disc, bulging disc, or degenerative disc disease
• You want to reduce or eliminate reliance on pain medication
• You have chronic back stiffness that limits your daily activities
• Your back pain is connected to sciatica or SI joint problems

You May NOT Be a Good Candidate If:

• You have an unstable spinal fracture (requires surgical stabilization)
• You have cauda equina syndrome (requires emergency surgery)
• You have an active spinal infection
• You have a pacemaker or implanted electrical device (electroacupuncture is contraindicated; traditional acupuncture may still be appropriate)

“I’ll be straight with you about what I think is causing your pain and whether I think we can help. If acupuncture and our other treatments aren’t the right fit for your situation, I’ll tell you that directly and point you toward someone who can help.”

---

What to Expect at Your First Back Pain Visit

Your first visit goes deeper than what you’ll get at most clinics. I need to understand the full circuit—every potential disruption—before I can create an effective treatment plan.

Your evaluation includes:

• Detailed history of your back pain—onset, duration, what makes it better or worse, any leg symptoms
• Lumbar spine examination—range of motion testing, palpation, orthopedic testing, neurological screening
• Review of any imaging (MRI, X-rays, CT scans)
• Assessment of posture, movement patterns, and daily activities
• Identification of every contributing factor—not just the obvious one

Your first treatment is typically same-day and includes acupuncture targeted to your specific back pain pattern. If chiropractic adjustment, laser, or other treatments are appropriate based on your evaluation, we may incorporate those as well.

Typical treatment plan: 6–12 sessions for most back pain cases, typically once or twice per week initially. Acute muscular back pain can respond in 4–6 sessions. Chronic back pain with disc or nerve involvement may need 10–14. Degenerative conditions often benefit from periodic maintenance sessions after the initial course. I’ll set clear expectations based on your situation—no open-ended treatment plans that go on indefinitely.

---

Frequently Asked Questions About Acupuncture for Back Pain

How does acupuncture help back pain specifically?

Acupuncture addresses back pain through multiple mechanisms: releasing trigger points in lumbar and paraspinal muscles, reducing inflammation around irritated discs and nerves, triggering your body’s natural endorphin release for pain relief, and resetting a sensitized nervous system that’s been amplifying pain signals. I target the specific muscles involved in your back pain pattern—the erector spinae, quadratus lumborum, multifidus, piriformis, and gluteals—based on your individual evaluation.

Can acupuncture help a herniated disc in the lower back?

Acupuncture can significantly reduce the pain and inflammation associated with a lumbar herniated disc, but it doesn’t directly repair the disc structure. That’s why I often combine acupuncture with spinal decompression therapy—decompression creates negative pressure to encourage disc retraction, while acupuncture handles the surrounding inflammation and nerve irritation. Together, they address both the cause and the consequences.

How many acupuncture sessions does it take for back pain relief?

Most back pain patients notice improvement within 3–4 sessions and experience significant relief by 6–10 sessions. Acute muscular back pain can respond in as few as 2–3 sessions. Chronic back pain with disc involvement or nerve compression typically needs 10–14 sessions. I’ll give you a specific recommendation after your evaluation—no guessing, no vague timelines.

Is acupuncture or chiropractic better for back pain?

This isn’t an either/or question—they address different components of the same problem. Chiropractic corrects spinal alignment and joint mechanics. Acupuncture releases muscle tension, reduces inflammation, and calms nerve irritation. Most of my back pain patients get the best results from both treatments working together. That’s the advantage of seeing a provider who’s trained in both disciplines.

Can acupuncture help sciatica?

Yes—and it’s one of acupuncture’s strongest applications. Acupuncture reduces inflammation around the compressed nerve root, releases piriformis and gluteal trigger points that may be contributing to nerve irritation, and modulates the pain signaling along the sciatic nerve pathway. I wrote a comprehensive article on this topic: Acupuncture for Sciatica Relief in Naperville IL.

Does acupuncture work for degenerative disc disease?

Acupuncture is particularly valuable for degenerative disc disease because it manages the chronic inflammatory cycle that drives pain without the risks of long-term medication use. It can’t reverse the degeneration itself, but it effectively reduces pain, improves mobility, and maintains function. Many of my DDD patients use periodic acupuncture as their primary ongoing pain management strategy, avoiding or significantly reducing their reliance on medications.

Can I get acupuncture for back pain after back surgery?

In most cases, yes. Acupuncture is safe after spinal surgery and can help with residual pain, muscle tension, scar tissue complications, and persistent nerve irritation that commonly occur after back surgery. I evaluate each post-surgical patient individually—reviewing surgical records, understanding what was done, and designing treatment that’s appropriate for the stage of recovery. Post-surgical back pain patients are often excellent acupuncture candidates.

How does spinal decompression complement acupuncture for back pain?

They work on different parts of the same problem. Spinal decompression creates negative pressure within the disc, encouraging herniated or bulging material to retract and promoting nutrient flow for disc healing. Acupuncture addresses the inflammation, muscle guarding, and nerve irritation surrounding the damaged disc. Think of it this way: decompression fixes the bad bulb, acupuncture restores the flow through the rest of the strand. Together, they’re more effective than either treatment alone.

Is acupuncture safe for back pain with a pinched nerve?

Yes—and nerve-related back pain is one of the conditions where acupuncture can be especially effective. I carefully select needle placement based on which lumbar nerve is involved, targeting the surrounding inflammation and muscle spasm while calming the irritated nerve itself. Combined with spinal decompression to address the structural compression, this is one of our most successful treatment protocols.

What causes chronic back pain that won’t go away?

Chronic back pain that persists usually has multiple overlapping causes—the circuit has more than one bad bulb. Muscle tension and trigger points, disc degeneration or herniation, facet joint inflammation, SI joint dysfunction, nerve irritation, poor movement patterns, and sometimes nutritional factors that promote chronic inflammation. This is exactly why single-treatment approaches fail. If you’re only fixing one bulb, the other bad ones keep the circuit disrupted. My integrative approach identifies and addresses every contributing factor simultaneously.

Can acupuncture help SI joint pain?

Yes. Sacroiliac joint dysfunction is one of the most commonly missed causes of low back pain, and acupuncture combined with chiropractic adjustment is highly effective for it. Acupuncture releases the muscle spasm around the SI joint—particularly the piriformis, gluteals, and deep rotators—while chiropractic adjustment restores proper joint mechanics. For SI joint pain that hasn’t responded to other treatments, this combination is often the breakthrough.

Why see a chiropractor-acupuncturist for back pain instead of an acupuncture-only clinic?

Because your back is a complex structure with vertebrae, discs, nerves, joints, ligaments, and muscles that all interact. An acupuncture-only provider treats the soft tissue—muscle tension, inflammation, nerve calming—but they can’t evaluate your spine structurally, read your MRI, identify which disc is herniated, diagnose SI joint dysfunction, or correct a spinal misalignment. I can do all of that AND provide acupuncture, decompression, laser, and SoftWave in one coordinated plan. You get every bad bulb fixed, not just the easy ones.

---

Your Back Pain Circuit Can Be Fixed

Think about that strand of Christmas lights. Right now, your circuit has one or more bad bulbs keeping everything from working the way it should. The pain, the stiffness, the limited mobility, the radiating symptoms—they’re all connected to disruptions that can be identified and addressed.

At Synergy Institute in Naperville, we don’t just treat the symptoms you feel. We find every disruption in the circuit and fix them—systematically, with treatments that address different layers of the problem. And if I don’t think we can help your particular situation, I’ll tell you that directly.

Call or text (630) 454-1300 to schedule your consultation.

What to expect at your first visit:

• Complete lumbar spine and back pain evaluation
• Review of your MRI or imaging
• Honest assessment of what’s causing your back pain
• Same-day treatment if appropriate

Synergy Institute Acupuncture & Chiropractic 4931 Illinois Route 59, Suite 121 Naperville, IL 60564

Serving Naperville, Plainfield, Bolingbrook, Aurora, Oswego, and surrounding communities.

---

References

1. DeBar LL, et al. Acupuncture for chronic low back pain in older adults: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open. 2025;8(9):e2838793. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838793
2. Vickers AJ, et al. Acupuncture for chronic pain: update of an individual patient data meta-analysis. The Journal of Pain. 2018;19(5):455-474. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29198932/
3. Mu J, et al. Acupuncture for chronic nonspecific low back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2020;(12):CD013814. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33306198/
4. Hoy D, et al. The global burden of low back pain: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 2014;73(6):968-974. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24665116/
5. Haake M, et al. German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for chronic low back pain: randomized, multicenter, blinded, parallel-group trial with 3 groups. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2007;167(17):1892-1898. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17893311/
6. National Institutes of Health. Acupuncture treatment improves disabling effects of chronic low back pain in older adults. NIH News Release. September 2025. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/acupuncture-treatment-improves-disabling-effects-chronic-low-back-pain-older-adults
7. Zhao ZQ. Neural mechanism underlying acupuncture analgesia. Progress in Neurobiology. 2008;85(4):355-375. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18582529/
8. Langevin HM, Yandow JA. Relationship of acupuncture points and meridians to connective tissue planes. The Anatomical Record. 2002;269(6):257-265. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12467083/
9. Zhang R, et al. Mechanisms of acupuncture-electroacupuncture on persistent pain. Anesthesiology. 2014;120(2):482-503. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24322588/
10. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Acupuncture: What You Need to Know. NCCIH. 2024. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture-what-you-need-to-know
11. Elias SS, et al. Acupuncture for low-back pain. PMC. 2021. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8236296/
12. Cherkin DC, et al. A randomized trial comparing acupuncture, simulated acupuncture, and usual care for chronic low back pain. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2009;169(9):858-866. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19433697/

---

Medical Disclaimer

This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any medical decisions. Individual results may vary.

If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 immediately.

Last reviewed by Dr. Jennifer Wise, DC — February 2026